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Wednesday, April 03, 2013

The Rangers have traded underperforming but still elite right wing Marian Gaborik to the Columbus Blue Jackets for forwards Derick Brassard, 25, and Derek Dorsett, 26, and defenseman John Moore, 22. The Rangers also receive a sixth-round pick.

Dorsett is out for the rest of the season with a fractured clavicle suffered on March 7. It’s not yet clear whether Brassard or Moore will be available for tonight’s game against the Penguins.

Gaborik, 31, was considered one of the top free agent signings for the Rangers when he left the Wild for a five-year, $37.5 million deal for the 2009-10 season and he reached 40 goals in two of his first three seasons with the team.

However, he has struggled through this lockout-shortened season with nine goals and 10 assists in 35 games - and that includes five goals in his first five games this season. He and coach John Tortorella have often seemed to not be on the same page and Gaborik even started Saturday’s 3-0 loss at Montreal with two shifts on the fourth line after also practicing that way the day before in Ottawa.

With the salary cap lowering to $64.3 million next season, the Rangers needed to shed salary.

Brassard counts $3.2 million against the cap next season, Dorsett’s salary cap figure is $1.67 million the next two seasons and Moore is at $965,000 next season on his entry-level deal.

The 6-foot, 190-pound Dorsett had three goals, six assists and 53 penalty minutes in 24 games this season. Overall in 280 NHL games, he has 727 penalty minutes. The 6-1, 202-pound Brassard has seven goals and 11 assists in 34 games and 58 goals and 111 assists in 309 NHL games. Moore, the Blue Jackets first-round pick (21st overall) in 2009, has two goals and six assists in 86 games and is a career minus-28.

This trade is a whopper and it will be the Rangers’ only one today.

Also, forgot to mention in my earlier post on Clowe and the morning skate but Marc Staal was at the practice facility this morning, doing off-ice work. He declined to speak to the media. But there was a helmet with a visor at his locker stall.
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About

ANDREW GROSS covers the New York Rangers for The Record and Herald News, having joined the North Jersey Media Group in November 2007. Gross also covered the Rangers and New York Jets, as well as St. John’s basketball and Army football, for Gannett Newspapers and The Journal News (N.Y.). He graduated from Syracuse University in 1989 with a degree in newspaper journalism.